Covid 19 thread

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OldSchool

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My God, I would hope by now everyone would set aside partisan politics and focus on the true enemy defeating the various.....Anything other than working cohesively so to save lives should be damned and it doesn't matter who is able to uncover how to combat COVID-19, if it works and saves lives, then let's move forward and thank the good lord accordingly.
Unfortunately it won't ever happen. Never forget the quote "don't let a good crisis go to waste". It's sad the politics still affecting this issue, hell I saw one conspiracy theory that it was a republican created virus because the hardest hit area's in the country are democrat voting strongholds. Never going to get away from it unfortunately.
 

XXXIVwin

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Yeah but you get my point about the “seasonal” flu and how it would look like a pandemic if you showed those numbers right?
I mean how is the media gonna handle this moving forward?
30 million sick by the flu in a 4 month span - that blows away what is happening now on face value.
There are deaths from influenza too.
The fact you recite a scoreboard of this specific flu bug to that specific flue bug is exactly what i’m getting at. Scoreboard watching with zero fucking context to what’s really going on, as to @Mojo Ram point
Yes, I agree with you that the seasonal flu could look like a "pandemic" if shown in a certain light. But respectfully and honestly, I don't quite know what you mean by "scoreboard watching" is "what you are getting at." Truly, I don't quite understand what the point you are making is?

I can definitely understand all counterarguments posted in this thread. In fact, to give "ammunition" to your point, I'd mention the 2017/2018 flu season. It was really, really bad. In the USA alone, there were 45 MILLION infections and 61 THOUSAND deaths. In retrospect, it seems amazing that this was almost a non-event in terms of media coverage.

However.. all I can say is, despite those gargantuan numbers for the 2017/2018 seasonal flu, it seems to be the case that the Covid-19 is *categorically* different. In 2017/2018, in the USA there weren't any lockdowns, no social distancing, none of that. (And we DID have a partially effective vaccine, and some antiviral medicines, none of which we have for COvid19). The vast majority of epidemiologists seem to think that WITHOUT any of the extreme measures we are now taking, the deaths from Covid19 would be literally ten times or 20 times worse... zero mitigation would have resulted in 600 thousand deaths, maybe a million, maybe two million, in just the USA alone.

So yes, my whole point is that it DOES make sense to "compare this flu bug to that coronavirus bug." One is TEN TIMES deadlier than the other, probably more so. It is because of this that the whole world is on lockdown. And if the epidemiologists are right that over a *million* Americans could die if we do nothing... doesn't it make sense for the media to to warn the public to take this seriously? Especially when there are STILL millions of people who are ignoring sensible advice?
 
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Dieter the Brock

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Unfortunately it won't ever happen. Never forget the quote "don't let a good crisis go to waste". It's sad the politics still affecting this issue, hell I saw one conspiracy theory that it was a republican created virus because the hardest hit area's in the country are democrat voting strongholds. Never going to get away from it unfortunately.

If you read the article about the small business loan programs issue you can see the same thing working. As if the president was personally launching the site. Of course there will be glitches - at the same time when the Affordable Care site launched everyone blamed the president at the time and blamed him for political reasons. It’s a sad state of affairs to say the least.
 

VegasRam

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The SBA has been a shit show since it’s inception.
But even if it it weren’t, those among us who expect billions of dollars to hit the streets in 24 hours are hopelessly naive, uninformed, or, (which is the most likely case), under 30.
 

thirteen28

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Yes, I'm saying that if an economy cannot handle an event such as this then that is evidence that the economy needs to be changed/improved in such a way to dampen the effects of said events.

Please illuminate us on how you can stop an economy dead in its tracks without incurring significant damage. Please give me a historical example of one economy that could have been put on hold to the degree ours and many other economies have without incurring serious damage.

None of this shit has anything to do with what I'm talking about, I'm saying that the economy needs to improve in a way that makes disasters like this not require a total shutdown like we're seeing now.

It's not the economy or some characteristic thereof that caused the shutdown, it's the pandemic. I've been arguing ever since my entry into this thread that there was no need to shut it down to this degree. You and others that have been going at it with me have argued the opposite.

I get that you are enamored with working at home, and a lot of us (myself included) already do, if not all the time, most of it. My wife worked for IBM when I met her 16 years ago and did plenty of work at him. But not everybody can do that. Not every job can be performed at home. Many of the jobs that can't be done at home are on the lower rungs of the latter affecting the most economically vulnerable.

As far as learning things from this, many have advocated that we need to stop outsourcing so much production overseas and especially critical production. Many have long abandoned the dogma of "free trade" that so many other mindlessly cling to, having seen it hollow out the industrial base in this country's heartland. Many have thought we need to decouple from China as their government is entirely untrustworthy, having proven time and time again that economic liberalization doesn't always coincide with political liberalization. And many have argued that we need to tighten up our immigration system and stop giving away so many H1-B visas and such while American workers are having trouble finding jobs. Those are the lessons we should learn from this, once that have been underscored greatly - but lessons that others have been arguing for us to learn for a long time. Where were you on those?

Just because you're not rich doesn't mean that you're not advocating for that. I'm willing to take the very large hit that my stocks and retirement and such are taking to not have a bunch of unnecessary deaths.

And this is where your blind spot is revealed again. It's not about what YOU can afford. If you can take a hit to your stocks and retirement, good for you.

For many people though, continuing a shutdown to this degree is going to make the difference between being able to pay their rent, and not pay it. It will be the difference between paying their mortgage and foreclosure. For most of the 10 million people laid off in the last two weeks, it's not about their retirement, stock portfolio, or 401k, as many of them don't have any of those or have them in small portions. Many of those people simply cannot afford to take the hit that you are willing to take.
 

thirteen28

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This is a situation I am definitely going to be keeping an eye on.

 

bluecoconuts

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Please illuminate us on how you can stop an economy dead in its tracks without incurring significant damage. Please give me a historical example of one economy that could have been put on hold to the degree ours and many other economies have without incurring serious damage.

How does this negate the argument that we should look to grow and evolve our economy to not need to shut down in case of such events? I didn't say we should switch to a previously attempted economic belief, how does that solve the issue?

It's not the economy or some characteristic thereof that caused the shutdown, it's the pandemic. I've been arguing ever since my entry into this thread that there was no need to shut it down to this degree. You and others that have been going at it with me have argued the opposite.

You have no basis of fact to support your claim that there was no need to shut it down to such a degree, when health experts have all said this is necessary. My argument against you on that claim is because what you have been saying is a dangerous take that experts have numerously said is a bad take. You're facing a lot of resistance with that claim because you're consistently trying to present yourself as some sort of counter to the experts with no credibility to back it up.

I get that you are enamored with working at home, and a lot of us (myself included) already do, if not all the time, most of it. My wife worked for IBM when I met her 16 years ago and did plenty of work at him. But not everybody can do that. Not every job can be performed at home. Many of the jobs that can't be done at home are on the lower rungs of the latter affecting the most economically vulnerable.

I'm not enamored with working from home, while there are large portions of my job that can be done from home, like instruction, the most important aspects of my job do require me to be physically present due to the fact that we conduct our experiments with extremely expensive and sensitive equipment that I can't get at home. That doesn't negate the fact there are tons of small little changes we could have made to our society and economy that would have far reduced the impact of this pandemic though. There are aspects of society and our economy that can make it better for the lower rungs, and I'm sorry but our economy largely ignores the lower rungs of the economic latter, so it's hard to take someone who's arguing on behalf of the lower rungs of the latter with one side of the mouth while also advocating that we keep the economy open and never change it, which disproportionately hurts the very same people.

And this is where your blind spot is revealed again. It's not about what YOU can afford. If you can take a hit to your stocks and retirement, good for you.

For many people though, continuing a shutdown to this degree is going to make the difference between being able to pay their rent, and not pay it. It will be the difference between paying their mortgage and foreclosure. For most of the 10 million people laid off in the last two weeks, it's not about their retirement, stock portfolio, or 401k, as many of them don't have any of those or have them in small portions. Many of those people simply cannot afford to take the hit that you are willing to take.

If my stocks have to take a hit in order to keep people safer than so be it, but I'll be damned if my stocks are going to take a hit so some millionaires and billionaires can take a smaller hit, which is usually more of the line of thinking for those who want to open things back up. There are so many others steps we can take to support those who are feeling the hurt economically without telling them to hit the bricks and get back to work so they can sit there and risk infection, risk going into medical debt and destroying their entire livelihood.. Assuming they survive the disease of course.
 

Akrasian

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This is a situation I am definitely going to be keeping an eye on.


Well, a country that is spread out in terms of population, and has an effective universal health care, should be doing better. Add in that the population does seem to be following most of the limited restrictions (i.e. they don't have pastors celebrating having huge church services at this time, and they don't have tens of thousands of stupid kids congregating at Florida beaches to bring the infection back home) and they should be doing okay. Even then, they are considering tightening up as the Covid-19 infections start to rise.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrie...avirus-lockdown-but-can-it-last/#116b655d5f91
 

IBruce80

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Hope everyone is well.

So, Prime Minister here in Japan came on TV to announce that he will announce a state of emergency.
Bit odd to announce you will officially announce something.
Rules and procedure mean things run slowy here
 

EastRam

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You know there are some business’s that are doing just fine during this pandemic.

Are we going to see some
Business’s practice ethics

I see no reason why the car insurance companies shouldn’t give some refunds due to the extreme downturn in traffic and accidents.

Just a thought.
 

snackdaddy

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You know there are some business’s that are doing just fine during this pandemic.

Are we going to see some
Business’s practice ethics

I see no reason why the car insurance companies shouldn’t give some refunds due to the extreme downturn in traffic and accidents.

Just a thought.

Lol, my policy just renewed and it went up about 10 percent for the same coverage.
 

12intheBox

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You know there are some business’s that are doing just fine during this pandemic.

Are we going to see some
Business’s practice ethics

I see no reason why the car insurance companies shouldn’t give some refunds due to the extreme downturn in traffic and accidents.

Just a thought.

Some businesses will be fine, some will even flourish.

I wouldn’t count on a pouring in of business ethics. Profit rules in this country - companies are going to be looking out for themselves and their shareholders.

Any companies who offer a discount or “help” are likely doing do for P.R.
 

12intheBox

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Hope everyone is well.

So, Prime Minister here in Japan came on TV to announce that he will announce a state of emergency.
Bit odd to announce you will officially announce something.
Rules and procedure mean things run slowy here

I read that it looked like 20% of their GDP. Yuge.
 

EastRam

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Some businesses will be fine, some will even flourish.

I wouldn’t count on a pouring in of business ethics. Profit rules in this country - companies are going to be looking out for themselves and their shareholders.

Any companies who offer a discount or “help” are likely doing do for P.R.

Personally we’re not counting on any business to “Do the right thing”

Just pointing out that car insurance companies should discount their product based on claims should go down due to the obvious
 

HX76

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Our PM now in intensive care. Not great al all.
 

12intheBox

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Our PM now in intensive care. Not great al all.

No it isn’t.

Personally we’re not counting on any business to “Do the right thing”

Just pointing out that car insurance companies should discount their product based on claims should go down due to the obvious

I don’t disagree at all. But of any industry to step in and lead a business ethics renaissance, the insurance industry has to be a Vegas long shot.
 

Memento

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How often does England change PM's? She was PM less than a year ago wasn't she?

Yeah, but they're like presidents: they have terms and elections, I believe.
 
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